ECO4 has ended: the full position for Wales
If you previously looked up ECO4 for your town — Cardiff, Swansea, Wrexham, Llanelli, anywhere in Wales — this is the page that replaces all of those. The scheme closed to new applications across Great Britain on 31 March 2026, and the same closure applies in every Welsh county. Here is what that means in practice.
The closure, precisely
ECO4 was a legal obligation on large energy suppliers, created by Westminster regulations with a fixed four-year term: 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2026. The obligation period ended on schedule. The Great British Insulation Scheme, which ran alongside it for single insulation measures, ended on the same date. Because both were supplier obligations rather than devolved programmes, the Welsh Government had no mechanism to extend them in Wales — though it does run its own scheme, of which more below.
Suppliers retain a window to complete installations they committed to before the deadline, which is why vans are still fitting ECO4-funded measures in 2026 and why misleading marketing can claim the scheme is "still going". Delivery is still going. Applications are not.
If you were already in the ECO4 pipeline
Had a retrofit assessment and signed paperwork? Your installation should be honoured. Chase the installer or managing agent named on your documents, and if they have gone quiet, escalate to the energy supplier whose obligation funded the project — their name appears on the paperwork too. Ofgem's consumer pages explain the complaint route if a committed job stalls.
Only filled in a website form? Then you were never in the pipeline — web forms were marketing, not applications. Nothing was reserved for you, and follow-up calls promising to "transfer your ECO4 application" to another scheme are lead-resale patter. The good news: in Wales there is a genuine place to take your circumstances, and it is below.
Where each kind of ECO4 applicant goes now
| Your situation under ECO4 | Your 2026 route in Wales |
|---|---|
| On means-tested benefits, hard-to-heat home | Nest / Warm Homes Wales — free measures, live now, similar criteria plus health-based routes |
| Off-gas, oil or LPG heated | Boiler Upgrade Scheme (£7,500, no means test) + Nest if income-eligible — see the off-gas guide |
| Hoping for funded solar panels | Rarely free now — the Welsh solar funding picture covers 0% VAT, export payments and when Nest includes renewables |
| Social housing tenant | Your landlord's retrofit programme (Welsh social landlords work under the Welsh Housing Quality Standard) — raise it with your housing officer |
| Referred by council flexible eligibility | Ask the same council energy team what they now refer into — several Welsh authorities route households to Nest and local crisis funds |
What Westminster has signalled next
The UK Government's Warm Homes Plan is the announced successor framework for Great Britain, and a future supplier obligation to follow ECO has been signalled in principle. As of mid-2026 the detail is still evolving — there is no new GB-wide obligation scheme taking applications. We update this page as announcements harden into rules. In the meantime Wales has the advantage of not waiting: Nest never stopped.
If ECO4 is no longer open to you, gbisapplication.co.uk walks through applying under the Great British Insulation Scheme instead.